Wicked at Heart Read Free

devil's deeds . . .
    Now, in the sane
light of early morning, Damon was bleary-eyed and depressed, his movements
wooden as he tossed his few things into a satchel and set it down in a chair. 
Outside, dawn's light was just touching the magnificent carved spires that
soared above the city, softening the forbidding stone and toasting the ancient
buildings in peachy washes of pink and gold.  Below his window the carefully groomed
lawn of Peckwater Quad was a misty green; doves cooed from the elegant
courtyard, and sunlight slashed against the stately Corinthian columns of the
library opposite.
    Oxford.  It
would be the last time he'd look upon its noble, ancient beauty, the last time
he'd behold its quiet magnificence.  He set his jaw.  He didn't care.  He
hadn't learned a damn thing here, anyhow — except how to make a girl moan and
sob in the throes of passion.
    He sat down and
put on his shoes.
    I don't care.
    But he did care.  Despite everything, life at Oxford was still better than life at
Morninghall ever had been, and the thought of returning to his ancestral home
chilled his bones and made his heart accelerate with sudden anxiety.
    I won't go
back there , he vowed, bending over and yanking on his other shoe.  Mama
will scream at me.  She'll call Reverend Croyden in and make him exorcise the
devil in me.  And after he leaves, she'll take to the bottle and beat me.  Again
and again and again . . .
    At Morninghall
there was no place to escape.  Not in the library, where he had once been able
to lose himself in books while hiding from his mother's heavy hand.  Not in the
huge bedchamber, which, with its gloomy, ancient furnishings, heraldic crests,
and magnificent carved four-poster, had always frightened him, for it had
belonged to five other marquesses before him and was still — he used to think
when he woke up, trembling, in the dead of night — haunted by their wandering
spirits.  Not in the house, not in the stables, not even in the fact that he
was the heir to the title and the vast Cotswolds estates that went with it.
    For at
Morninghall there was nothing to protect him from his mother's madness.  Nor,
when she learned he'd been sent down from Oxford, her wrath.
    The young
marquess finished with his shoes and, without straightening up in his chair,
put his head in his hands.  It would be as it always had been.  Damon the
Devil.  Damon the Beast.  Damon, born on the sixth day of the sixth month in
the sixth year of the decade.  Oh, God help him . . .
    His hands began
to shake, his palms to perspire.  He could see it now.  The wailing would start,
then the screaming, the sobbing, the drinking, the beatings . . .
    Clawing his
hands over his face, he rose, gathering his resolve and trying to put the
inevitable out of his mind.
    The sun was
higher now, burning the mist off the manicured courtyard, turning the
honey-colored stone of the library lemon and gold and sparkling off its
beautiful Venetian windows.  A blackbird sang from somewhere near, and already
Damon could smell the scent of food from the hall's kitchens, could hear
laughter in the adjoining room.  The great university was awakening.  It was
best to leave now, before everyone found out what had happened — if they hadn't
already.  He had been humiliated enough.
    He tied his
cravat, pulled on a sober, elegantly fitted jacket, then, picking up his hat
and satchel, turned his back on his room — and, Oxford.  Head high, mouth
carved in stone, he left the stately Palladian building in Peckwater Quad that
he'd called home these past few months, passed the library, skirted the vast,
magnificent Great Quadrangle, and exited Christ Church via the Gateway, above
which the seven-ton bell, Great Tom, had tolled out his impending demise the
night before.  He made his way south down Fish Street, hoping that no one would
recognize him, hoping someone would, and all the while wishing with all his
heart that the dean would come running out of